Telegraph View: The arrival of 800,000 asylum seekers in Germany makes
a mockery of the EU's immigration policies. Free movement without passports
will, inevitably, be up for renegotiation

Europe’s migrant crisis has reached astonishing proportions. Germany is now expected to receive 800,000 asylum seekers in 2015. This amounts to roughly 1 per cent of the country’s population, or a little more than the population of Leeds. They come from war zones beyond the continent, such as Syria; but also from the poorer parts of Europe, including Kosovo and Albania. And with their arrival, Germany becomes ever more aware of the desperate flaws in the way that the EU handles its utopian promise of the free movement of people.

To alleviate this problem they have exploited the second flaw in the EU’s approach: the Schengen Agreement, which commits its signatories to passport-free movement across borders. Italy, Hungary and Greece have been permitting, or even quietly inviting, their asylum seekers to relocate to other countries. Enormous numbers have gone to Germany. The Germans have embraced refugees as atonement for the sins of the Second World War. But 800,000 is a figure to trouble even the most bleeding-heart liberal.

German politicians have called for greater integration of asylum policy across the EU, including higher refugee quotas among all members, though how that would work with open borders is a mystery. Some regional officials have called for controls between nations to be reinstated. France and Austria have tried closing their borders with Italy, sending those without the right papers back. In Calais, after weeks of chaos, a deal has been signed between the French and the British to deal with a sometimes violent crisis. Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s interior minister, has acknowledged that the very principle of free movement is suddenly up for debate. “We want free movement of people,” he said, “but… the question is what does free movement of people mean in Europe?”

A Polish lorry driver opens his vehicle to find migrants from Eritrea hiding inside at a lorry park at the port of Calais in September Photo: Geoff Pugh/The Telegraph

The answer is probably that free movement will remain for citizens of the EU but that there will have to be a much tighter enforcement for anyone who falls outside of that definition. This belies the EU’s self-image as a liberal, internationalist project. In reality, it is protectionist and will probably have to engage in the variety of conservative policies normally associated with Australia. There does need to be an aggressive crackdown on people smuggling. Asylum applications ought to be lodged and processed in countries outside of Europe. And those seeking asylum from within the EU will have to be swiftly deported if their claim is rejected.

The EU essentially exists to regulate a free market. At Calais it has failed: the free movement of people has been stymied by the migrant crisis. In Germany, poor control of the continental border has led to a population explosion that may prove grist to the mill of extremist parties who want to destroy the EU altogether. In other words, the failings of the EU mock the grand claims that it makes for itself – betraying a reality of incompetence and, where it leads to humanitarian crisis, such as in the Mediterranean, moral failure. The EU needs to get its borders in order.